The Northern Soul Podcast: Christmas horror stories:
"On this month’s Northern Soul Podcast, Laura Brown talks to four Northern horror writers about Christmas, ghosts, M.R. James and TV specials. She hears from John Reppion and Leah Moore, a husband and wife team from Liverpool who write comics. They have just published Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, an illustrated comic adapted from stories by M.R. James."

The world’s largest Rube Goldberg machine is here to light a damn Christmas tree:
"For decades, there have been competitions to make the most convoluted and impractical Rube Goldberg machines possible, but Guinness has bestowed the current crown on a team from Scandiweb, a Latvian e-commerce company. This record-setting machine takes over four minutes and dozens of ridiculous but delightful steps in order to light a giant Christmas tree in the town of Riga."

A Star Wars PSA by Felicity Jones:
"There’s been a lot of great interviews and insight to come out of the Rogue One junket, but this is by far my favorite."
[editor: seriously amazing, especially the Doctor Who reference.]

How Ink Master Became An Unexpected Lesson in Feminist Strategy:
"AMERICA DIDN’T GET its first woman president this year. That title went to a reality TV star instead. But on reality TV tonight, odds are that America will get its first woman Ink Master—contestants Kelly Doty and Ryan Ashley Malarkey are two of the three finalists. And if it happens, it will very likely be because the women on the show took a hint from the Obama administration."

Vintage ‘Glass Menagerie’ Performance Will Return to Air:
"“I’m a pretty good detective,” Jane Klain said, but she is no badge-wielding, revolver-packing gumshoe. She is in charge of research services for a museum. The latest product of her sleuthing was playing on a computer on the desk behind her — a 104-minute performance of “The Glass Menagerie” starring Shirley Booth, Hal Holbrook and Barbara Loden that was broadcast 50 years ago. As far as anyone knew, the master videotape was lost."

Happy Endings reunion: Watch the cast read the new script for a 'lost' episode:
"t took a while — 1,275 days, for those who enjoy marking long stretches of time with days instead of months and years. But fans of Happy Endings finally got what they wanted (or the closest thing to it) when the cast of the beloved, gone-too-soon cult comedy reunited at EW PopFest in October to perform a read-through of a spanking-new script."

BBC Genome: Advent Calendar Day 8: Festive Frontispiece:
"Radio Times often commissioned decorative borders for Christmas listings pages, and other artwork, including this evocative full-page snow scene from the 1930 festive issue. It’s not the actual front cover, but a sort of visual frontispiece before the main part of the issue, to help listeners (there weren’t very many viewers in 1930) get in the festive mood. We hope it does the same for you!"

How Green Is Your Christmas Tree?
"Every year, when comes the time to prepare for the Christmas Holidays, one question seems to come back time and time again: Should one buy a natural or an artificial Christmas tree?"

Aladdin Cast Make Cancer Patient Katie's Christmas Wish Come True:
"14-year-old Katie Wright from Childwall was born with Down’s Syndrome and is a huge panto fan but is unable to go and watch Aladdin which opens tonight as she is currently undergoing gruelling chemotherapy at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. It would be dangerous for Katie to sit in the audience amongst lots of other people due to risk of infection."

Playing Mary was my ‘feminist awakening’:
"Broadcaster Samira Ahmed played a silent Mary in her school Nativity in 1971. She claims, ‘It was a very interesting lesson in how the ultimate woman might be someone who's sitting there being looked at’."

Music You may have noticed in the past couple of days our tribe has been posting selfies of how we look now along with a photo of our faces from ten years ago. Because I don't have any photographs of myself from back then to hand and the weight loss is so extreme you'd think it was two different people anyway, here's something else which is completely different.

In 2006, each of my Christmas cards, back when I could afford to post them to dozens of people across the world, included a mix cd of music I'd enjoyed that year along with festive favourites. The equivalent of that now would be to email a Spotify playlist to some people. Or the following. Ten years on, I've decided to recreate the playlist on this blog for you all to enjoy.

Christmas Campaign To Provide Homeless Women With Hygiene Products:
"In the UK, homeless shelters are provided with funding for items like condoms and razors but not female hygiene products. Despite the UK having struck a deal with the EU to remove the luxury item tax in March, no change in taxation has taken effect. This means that for the thousands of homeless women in the UK, the cost of sanitary products could be at the expense of a meal."

History of "Happy Holidays":
"As something of a history nerd, I decided to investigate the use of the term "Happy Holidays" in US history, especially given some recent controversy over whether it is an appropriate term or not. To me, the answer is obvious: yes, it's appropriate, and so are other more specific greetings like "Merry Christmas". After all, there are a number of holidays celebrated by most Americans during this season (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years') as well as those celebrated by sizable minorities such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa."

The 2016 kottke.org Holiday Gift Guide:
"For the past few years, I’ve featured the season’s best gift guides from other sites and pulled out a few things from each that I think you might be interested in. 2016 has been a rough year for some of us, so getting in a festive mood might be asking too much. But my determination to give is off the charts this year, and if you’re feeling similarly, maybe this will help you. Let’s dig in."

The Gilmore Girls revival gets the opening title sequence we’ve been waiting for:
"ere’s plenty of debate to be had about the Gilmore Girls revival. Is Rory the worst? Why is the “g” in “girls” lowercase in the title? Has Jess somehow become the sanest person in Stars Hollow? But one truth universally acknowledged is that the four Netflix movies were missing the iconic Gilmore Girls theme song. Sung by Carole King and her daughter Louise Goffin, the “Where You Lead I Will Follow” title sequence was a backbone of the original series, and the revival just wasn’t the same without it. Thankfully, the YouTube channel Rose Tyler has fixed Netflix’s oversight and created an opening sequence fit for this new era of Gilmore Girls."

Bill Nighy on Love Actually and “intensely embarrassing” sex scenes:
"Many Americans were introduced to the disarmingly charming actor Bill Nighy in Richard Curtis’ holiday staple Love Actually. He was playing Billy Mack, a washed-up rocker making a surprising comeback. This is the type of guy who brags about shagging Britney Spears. (Hey, it was 2003.) It turns out Nighy detests doing sex scenes, a fact he learned during his breakout TV role in England, the series The Men’s Room. Though it took him a while, Nighy is now a ubiquitous cinematic presence, popping up all over the place, sometimes in franchise blockbusters, and often in the films of Richard Curtis and Edgar Wright. To that last point, he has the rare distinction of appearing in each film in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. Each of his roles he tackles with a glint in his eye and impeccable timing."
[Editor's note: Fortunately Love Actually is barely mentioned and only in connection with Still Crazy. He also has a longish comment about Vincent and the Doctor.]

The New Statesman’s ultimate Christmas lunchbreak guide 2016:
"We all know the best thing about the festive season is working all the way up to Christmas Eve, so here’s a list of the best (and worst) high street Christmas lunch food my colleagues and I have painstakingly chewed up and spat out for your delectation."

Your New TV Ruins Movies:
"If you have bought a television recently, or are considering buying one, take heed: your beautiful new flat-panel TV will try very, very hard to make whatever movies you watch on it look not just bad, but aggressively, satanically, puppy-drowningly bad."

This Giant Christmas Tree Suspended in an Ice Cube Isn't What It Seems:
"A cube of ice might not seem like the ideal place for a Christmas tree, but that's where one appears to be in British artist and sculptor Alex Chinneck's latest public artwork Fighting fire with ice cream. The seasonal installation is at Granary Square in Kings Cross, London and the suspended tree is 17' tall and covered in 1,200 lights."

diamond geezer fact checks The Londonist's The Best Bus Routes For Seeing London's Christmas Lights:
"Top website Londonist enjoys nothing better than publishing articles about "London's Best". So far this month we've had London's Best Quizzes, The Best New London Restaurants Opening In November, London's Best Deep Fried Foods, The Best London Vantage Points For Watching Fireworks On Bonfire Night, The Best Beer Festivals In London This November, The Best Sandwiches In South London and London's Best Single Item Restaurants. And then yesterday we got this."

Get a rainbow Christmas tree at this farm in New Jersey:
"You can’t find them on a street corner in NYC, but if you head out to this farm in New Jersey, you can get one of these rad rainbow Christmas trees. At Wyckoff’s Christmas Tree Farm, you could get Douglas firs, blue spruces and fluorescent pink trees."

The Last Holiday Hurrah for British Retail:
"It's the typical run-up to Christmas. The tree's up, the novelty reindeer sweater's come out for its annual airing and retailers are fretting about the amount of money that will flow into their shops."

Watch Fiona Apple Sing Her New Christmas Song "Trump's Nuts Roasting on an Open Fire":
"Fiona Apple has shared a parody of Nat King Cole’s holiday classic “The Christmas Song,” in which she lambasts president-elect Donald Trump, as Paper Magazine points out. “Trump’s nuts roasting on an open fire/as he keeps nipping at his foes,” she sings. “Everybody knows some money and entitlement can help to make the season white/Mothers of color with their kids out of sight will find it hard to sleep at night.” Apple closes the song with, “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. Donald Trump, fuck you.” Watch her sing the full song below."

Somewhat Bigger Than A Christmas Card:
"When people find out about my partner’s diagnosis, after the initial shock and condolences, they usually end a difficult conversation by saying ‘let me know if there is anything I can do to help’. In those first few shell-shocked weeks, all we could was thank people for their offer and say no. Because unless someone happened to have a cure for lung cancer in their back pocket, what could anyone actually do? I was also determined to keep things as normal as possible for our two boys, so I asked friends and colleagues to respect a rule of no cards or gifts. If our house suddenly turned into a florists, (as it was in danger of doing) it would only confuse and alarm my children."

Crooks can guess Visa card details in six seconds by querying lots of websites at once:
"In Does The Online Card Payment Landscape Unwittingly Facilitate Fraud?, a new paper in IEEE Security & Privacy, researchers from the University of Newcastle demonstrate a technique for guessing secruity details for credit-card numbers in six seconds -- attackers spread their guesses out across many websites at once, so no website gets enough bad guesses to lock the card or trigger a fraud detection system."

An introvert's guide to the office Christmas party:
"The work Christmas party is often a colourful event, from colleagues cosying up under the mistletoe, to your boss performing an impromptu karaoke set – it’s always a rich source of cringeworthy stories and merriment."

Recipes: from venison meatballs to mulled glögg – food cooked over a birch fire:
"So much Swedish cooking is about fragrance. Since I run a restaurant that doesn’t use gas or electricity, only Scandinavian wood, I appreciate the scent of burning logs and coals as much as I do the sweet caramelising of meat or the nuttiness of melting butter. At home, I often cook outside with birch fires; the smell of wood and spices mingling in the fresh winter air is delicious."

Sight and Sound's Best Films of 2016:
"Time again for our annual international critics’ poll of the year’s top movies. This year we asked 163 critics and curators to name their five best films of the year – and the results are a small triumph for diversity (not to mention a lot of treats still to come to UK cinemas over the next few months). Films directed by women make up the majority of the top five, alongside Barry Jenkins’ gay black coming of age portrait Moonlight in second place."

Christmas Lights Turned on in Bethlehem:
"Hundreds of people gathered in Bethlehem to attend the annual turning on of Christmas tree lights in the West Bank city, marking the start of the Advent season."

The Snowflake Trail:
"From 1 December – 3 January Liverpool city centre will be transformed into a festive spectacle by the return of the Snowflake Trail; the city’s very own winter festival of spectacular light and sound that will capture the imagination of young and old alike."

TV Fucks sake. Eight episodes of this woefully middling series (I've come to the conclusion I was initially too kind to Class) and now we're treated to one of the most pat reveals since the cliffhanger ending of the first episode of every old Who story with Dalek in the title. The Weeping Angels. Well, gee. Perhaps its for the best that this "arrival" business hasn't been hinted at for the whole series because then we really might have felt let down. Then again, I still feel let down even though we were only made aware of it about half an hour before they emerged. True, it's hard to think of another monster which might have had more currency, the Voord perhaps, but there's something really quite disappointing about having to sit through one of those scenes which is supposed to be some ruddy great revelation and then be reintroduced to a foe which has gone past the point of having made their point.

Who are these governors? Cyril Nri is obviously not supposed to be reprising his shopkeeper role from The Sarah Jane Adventures, mores the pity, but as it goes so far they are incredibly dull, which means they're not some part of the Faction Paradox or breakaway wing of the Time Lords. One of the key decisions taken in the Buffyverse has been to not entirely introduce its audience to the senior partners at W R & H, which has kept them deliciously mysterious. Giving this lot a face and dress sense automatically diminishes them as does their astonishingly cliched if beautifully photographed locale. In an episode already overstuffed, we're also being asked to care about yet another thing which isn't even in the expositional orbit of most of the main characters other than in a vague sense of the headmistress knowing some things.

Gah. I'm cross. Once again, Class fails to tip over into Torchwood's Miracle Day levels of awfulness, settling once again into being, yeah, it's OK. You're not missing much if you don't watch it, and it has enough decent things in it if you're patient enough, but, shrug. Rubbish without being downright awful. The Lost is the epitome of what's been wrong with the whole series. To repeat: not enough time given over to making us care about the characters in a series which feels like a much longer stream of episode reduced to just the instalments focused on the main story arc. Despite the revelation, a show set in the Doctor Who universe which largely ignores the benefits of that. A lack of clear direction as to what the show is supposed to be having entirely ignored its initial mission statement of being about a group of precarious friends fighting whatever drops through the rifts in time.

Which isn't to say that bits of The Lost aren't just plain mediocre. The opening teaser montage is frankly godawful, April's sub-Corrs dirge overpowering what should be some huge character beats in a way which suggests that we're watching the truncation of a much longer opening. The unusual cynical motivating factor of parental murder. Some of the performance histrionics are incredibly hard to take. Even taking into the account the fact that people react to grief in different ways, crying simply isn't some actors forte notably when it reaches retching levels, especially when said actors range has otherwise extended to scowls and sarcasm. The relationship scenes between characters are often rudimentary at best, lacking any sense of wit or reflection of real characters having believable emotions.

Despite the murders, budget limitations simply won't allow for the threat of the Shadow army on the populace to be properly extenuated. Exactly how far this threat has spread isn't properly extenuated. We're probably supposed to assume globally but this leads us to wonder why UNIT aren't dealing with all of this, or the remnants of Torchwood or the Attic Team or, well, you get the idea. Given the level of danger involved, someone would and should have called the Doctor by now and here we are again with the shared universe problem. It simply doesn't make sense for these teenagers to be left dealing with this threat in the manner with with the Doctor did, our suspension of disbelief unearned and the lack of any reference to him, even in the negative, at this moment, is frankly bizarre. At least those other series have the good grace to try and explain his absence.

If there are any positives they're because Katherine Kelly has been perfectly cast even though she's now being hampered by a mystical pregnancy. The all too brief training scenes between Quill and Tanya hint at a series which allows its characters to breath and simply enjoy one another's company, with such things working as a b-plot contrast to whatever the a-plot monster is. You also can't argue with the show's impressive diversity, with not a single white cis male in sight; at a time when people who look like me even if they're nothing like me are in their racist ascendancy, it's genuinely important to have shows which represent the world as is could and should be and often is rather than pandering to the Caucasian patriarchal norm. Much as I enjoyed 10 Cloverfield Lane last night, there's absolutely no reason why any or all of those three characters had to be from the same racial origin.

But none of this is enough. The writer clearly wants us to be invested in the implications of opening the box and wreaking genocide on the shadows and there was some attempts at foreshadowing the moral dilemma in previous episodes but there's a reason why "Have I the right" works in Genesis. The Doctor is an extremely moral person being asked to do a horrifying thing. Here the Prince is essentially fighting against a mountain of selfish reasons not to. He's already decided he has every right but numerous artificial narrative blocks are what's stopping him. That makes him less than heroic - the script wants us to empathise with him even though he's generally come across as being a self-indulgent arsehole. After a while it becomes actively annoying that he keeps delaying the inevitable, a blessed relief when he finally shoots Chekhov's gun.

Similarly we should feel something about the death of April. But it's a female character suiciding herself so that a male character can do the heroic thing (even if, as we've discussed ...) which along with Quill's pregnancy somewhat undermines the show's otherwise "woke" qualities. Plus since she is only one of the two younger female leads we have to know that she'll be brought back should the show be recommissioned. And it's a cue for some more of that distracting histrionic acting. Then having her resurrected in the body of the actual shadow king, whilst pleasingly bonkers in the Chibnallian sense, will obviously be resolved via some magic or other - transferring herself back into her own body, simply ending up there due to some undiscovered mental trap door or an external intervention.

There's a weird arrogance to all of this. Class thinks its getting another series doesn't it? Have they already been recomissioned thanks to the injection of cash from international investors? BBC America have delayed broadcast which isn't a great sign and apparently the first couple of the episodes of the show didn't reach the top 50 on the iPlayer which means it's being watched by less than 185,000 viewers which given the first one has the Doctor's lengthy cameo, the lead character in what's supposed to be one of the cornerstones of BBC One's schedule over the Christmas and in the new year, something isn't working. As I've said before, it's either poor advertising, a lack of interest from the people who should be, or the show not being good enough for people to want to recommend it to others.

Class will be on the iPlayer for another eleven months and there's still the television broadcast to come. Perhaps it will find an audience now that it's entirely available to be binged through. A second series could potentially be a better prospect. Perhaps having run off most of the unrelatable backstory now, he'll allow his characters to become more likeable, less ambiguous. The elements are here and if the intention is to embrace more qualities of the key mythology, that at least could make it feel essential, especially if they have any significance within the main series. As it stands Class is a failed experiment, a self-defeating rudderless concoction presenting itself as a Doctor Who spin-off which for the most part is nothing of the sort. Can you imagine if this doesn't get a second series? What a stupid way to end things.

The experts’ guide to a great British cheeseboard:
"You have to have a cheeseboard at Christmas. It’s the law, along with turkey, sherry and sprouts, even if you don’t like them. But no one expects you to put much effort into it; days before Santa’s due, many of us reach for a supermarket selection. “Stilton?” we say, squinting at the packaging. “Check. Cheddar? Check. Something grey that might be brie? That’ll do.”"

The Last European Christmas: On Brexit, Hodgepodge Dinners, and Finding Your Identity:
"Brought up in Scotland, with an Irish father and Italian mother, I’ve never felt British—“Heinz 57 Varieties” was the family joke. And despite living in England for years, it’s painfully clear I’m not English. The UK’s recent Brexit has left me feeling more out on a limb. Who even am I? For those of us who came up along with the EU these past two decades, and who have long been grateful for England’s vibrant melting-pot heritage, the vote is little short of jaw-dropping."

9 reasons why The Likely Lads made the best Xmas TV special ever:
"The centre piece of BBC 1’s Christmas Eve 1974 line up was a final TV outing for Bob, Terry and Thelma. A typically maudlin special, with some out of place obligatory 70s slapstick, its mostly set in the Fat Ox and Bob’s front room. The aspirations of Thelma and the Elm Lodge Housing Estate clashed yet again with Terry’s insistence that inevitably he was just looking forward, at Christmas time, to the past. He’s waiting for that match on Boxing Day lunchtime (Newcastle v Carlisle) to kick off when normality would return…"

The “perfect” Christmas doesn’t exist – so why are women still expected to provide it?
"I couldn’t help but notice a particular supermarket advert last week – I’m guessing this brand’s Christmas card from fourth-wave feminism got lost in the post. Mum cheerfully picks up the mince pies from the bakery, while gleeful Grandma is dispatched to the vegetable aisle. Later, around a packed family table, cheerful Mum’s still on her feet, carrying in the glazed turkey. And Dad? Well, he’s sat at the head of the table. Passively surveying the feast."

All aboard! Christmas trains keep holiday spirit on track:
"Forget sleighs. The ultimate Christmas ride requires a train, with tourist railways across the country adding more specially themed holiday excursions every year. “There’s just a psychological bond between trains and Christmas,” says Jim Wrinn, editor of Trains Magazine, who believes the connection comes from nostalgia for holiday train trips to see family and toy railroads circling a decorated tree. He shares some favorite excursions with Larry Bleiberg for USA TODAY. Be sure and check ahead before visiting, as many trains sell out."Live the life of Ralphie with a Christmas stay in the house used in 'A Christmas Story':
"Watching “A Christmas Story” is part of the holiday tradition for many, a visit to the Cleveland house used in the filming of the movie takes it step further but how would you like the opportunity to go all out and go full Ralphie this Christmas Eve? It’s an experience that could be yours for a price."10 Awesome Christmas Ornaments for U.S. History Buffs:
"What a wonderful variety of ornaments we can get to decorate our Christmas trees! Here is an array of ornaments perfect for any U.S. history buff, whether that someone is yourself or a loved one."

Christmas at the Medieval Court:
"Though Christmas was very different in the Middle Ages, many of the pastimes and activities that we associate with it would have been familiar to medieval people. Feasting, playing games, singing, drinking around a fire, decorating the house with evergreens, and giving gifts, are just some of the traditions enjoyed in the medieval festive season."

BBC Christmas 2016 - Trailer:
"BBC Television invites viewers to celebrate Christmas 2016 in all its glory across BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Four, with a bountiful array of festive delights from the nation’s favourite shows, alongside all-star names in brand new content especially for the Christmas season including ..."

Supermarket solves 'mince pie gap' problem:
"Supermarket chefs have solved a culinary conundrum which has baffled Christmas cooks for generations … how to remove the ‘air gap’ from a mince pie. The pie’s lid usually rises in the oven, creating a space between the fruity mixture and pastry, which can cause the pie to sink when it’s bitten in to and leave customers deflated. But now Asda’s Innovation Chef Mark Richmond and his team have come up with a solution – and taste-tested more than 750 pies in the process – to close the gap in time for Christmas."

Make your holidays less human with the new Daft Punk ornaments:
"If your Christmases have been missing that slick electronic sheen and awesome talkbox/vocoder tricks of a particularly bangin’ Daft Punk track, then your extremely specific wish may have just been granted thanks to a new batch of holiday-themed Daft Punk merchandise. The band has sold Christmas ornaments in the past, but now they have a new set of miniature helmets that should class up even the crummiest of Christmas trees."

Netflix ‘Sense8’ Confirms Christmas Special Premiere Date:
"It seems so long ago that Sense8 offered any update on Season 2, or at least the Christmas special rumored to tide over fans until 2017. Now, Netflix has stealthily confirmed that new Sense8 content will arrive in late December, just in time for the holidays!"

25 Christmas-Not-Christmas movies for December:
"Everyone loves Christmas movies. Well, maybe not everyone, but certainly enough people to justify dedicating an entire channel to them and endlessly looping a few over and over around the holidays. This year though, maybe you'll want to watch something different, something illuminating a different side of the holiday. Not all of the 25 movies below are strictly Christmas Movies, but all of them have something very specific to say about Christmas."

35 great alternative Christmas songs:
"Bored of ‘Jingle Bells’ and the same god awful Christmas songs every time you walk into a shop or turn on the radio? Find salvation with our pick of 30 Yuletide tracks to sooth ears. First up, it’s Cee-Lo Green and The Muppets."

How to Decorate a Christmas Tree Elegantly:
"Anyone can throw some lights on a tree, but a beautifully decorated Christmas tree can light up the holiday spirit of everyone who sees it. Make sure your tree looks exquisite and classic by decorating with elegance. You'll need some planning time and a budget for ornaments, and then arrange all the decorations in order."

Five Plot Point Breakdowns: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
"1. INCITING INCIDENT -- In the little town of Whoville, the Whos joyously prepare for Christmas. The Grinch (Boris Karloff), who lives in a snowy mountain cave above Whoville, hates Christmas and wishes there was something he could do to make it stop. (00:03:33)"

Transport For London's festive guide:
"If you're travelling in London around Christmas and New Year 2016, service changes, planned works and events may affect your journey. This page provides you with travel advice during the festive period."

Ignore the foodie scrooges: I love ​a​ ​high-street ​​eggnog latte​:
"I love Christmas drinks. I’m not talking about swirling aged brandy around a big, old glass or having a champagne tipple on Christmas Day; I’m talking about the Starbucks red cups, the Costa range in their Christmassy cosies and the heavenly, lethally sickly McDonald’s spiced-cookie latte."

Hipster Nativity Set:
"It’s crazy to think that the Wisemen followed a star in the sky to find Jesus, rather than using Google Maps, but who are we to judge? These Wisemen arrive to the birth of Jesus in style, rocking their favorite hipster outfits, and tricked out segways." [via]

Grinch Christmas Cookie Recipe:
"It’s cookie season and this year delight your kids by serving Grinch Christmas Cookies with this ultra fun and adorable “3 sizes too small” green heart cookies. Easily made, this cookie brings the season alive with one of my very favorite icons, The Grinch! Even better, this cookie recipe that includes boxed cake mix and cream cheese, means for a delightfully delicious cookie that is excellent with a glass of milk or just on its own. The thing about some Christmas Cookies that you see out there is that the decorating itself can be hard and time-consuming. These are absolutely not. Just with a little food dye and a little heart to represent the Grinch and you are on your way!"

An Impassioned Defense of Extremely Bad Christmas Movies:
"Listen: The world is a desperately sad and dispiriting place at this particular moment, and we all need to make time for self-care. This year, three beers and and the new Frank Ocean simply will not do. You need more. You need the highest-possible dosage of cheese. You need the Christmas-themed TV movies you can only find way the hell up on your cable dial, between the home shopping channels and the religious stations."

Christmas pudding pricier after Brexit hits pound:
"Britons are facing a jump in prices for traditional pudding ingredients as the Brexit vote has sharply weakened the pound. However, the cost of Christmas dinners is almost unchanged from a year ago despite a rise in pork and vegetables."

6-Year-Old Sells Artwork to Buy Christmas Gifts for Kids in Need:
"Thanks to the kindness of one 6-year-old, almost 400 kids in need will be receiving Christmas gifts this year. Jedd Winebarger of Castlewood, Virginia, has raked in hundreds of dollars by selling his artwork and using the profits to buy presents. “I love to help children and see them happy like me,” Jedd said."

Hiking group plans to place new Christmas tree atop Camelback Mountain:
"Shortly after hikers and city officials solved the mystery of why a 15-foot Christmas tree was removed from the summit of Camelback Mountain less than 24 hours after it was placed there, the leader of the group responsible for the tree says they will put another tree on the mountain and believe they will be allowed to keep it there."We review the weirdest Christmas crisps:
"This year the supermarkets have gone a bit crazy with their crisps. Rather than the usual festive bit of snow on the packets, Tesco, M&S Kettle's and Tyrell's have gone ten steps further and created some flavours you would not expect to see in a crisp. Or, in one case, popcorn."

Christmas Most years at around this time I have a Christmas moment, a dislocated feeling, a bit warm but always with deep recognition, that Christmas is coming. It's either a snatch of music or seeing a decoration in the street or hearing two people talking about a present they're going to buy or a festive film on television (here's what happened in 2012). Sometimes it's simply a commercial which on the one hand leads to a sense of betrayal because the Christmas moment has been manufactured, but now and then it's just what I've needed. See if you can spot the moment during this Wes Anderson directed H&M advert when the Christmas moment happened:

On one level this feels like one of those YouTube "What if?" parodies (What if Wes Anderson Directed X-Men? etc). What if Wes Anderson directed a Christmas advert for a clothes company? But at this point Anderson seems entirely cognisant of his stylistic tropes to the point that he takes advantage of the viewer's understanding of them to intensify the effect, especially the camera pan which replaces a shot/reverse shot. But it works otherwise. I've shown this to someone who has never seen a Wes Anderson film before and she was enchanted.

About Having decided to rest the My Favourite Film posts for December, there was a gap where the logobar for this blog should go. After deliberating on a few film related choices, and don't think I didn't momentarily think about trolling you all with a shot from Love Actually, Hugh and Martine waving, I settled on this instead.

It's a shot of the nativity scene that was in my bedroom two years ago. Here is the whole of the image:

Probably a few things to unpack here. The embroidered "happiness" symbol was a present from Mum about fifteen years ago. Yes, that is a Motion Picture Spock. The three wise men, Mary, Joseph and lone Shepherd Mum and I made together when I was still at infants school which I've used every year since. An old hand painted Christmas card. A snowy scene featuring the Cantina Bar from Star Wars and just off to the edge the wing of an angel designed by Quentin Blake which was printed in The Guardian's G2 supplement.

TV Last night in an idle moment, I straw polled social media: "How many of you have watched the Doctor Who spin-off Class? It seems to have generated almost zero buzz." The answers were pretty much as expected. No one is watching it. It's not something that really interested them and because they've not heard amazing things about it have stuck to that decision. Some of these people are long term Doctor Who fans who you'd think would watch anything televised set in the Whoniverse and yet, even though this thing is free and available on demand they simply can't be bothered.

No one is talking about it. Granted my Twitter feed is currently top heavy with people fearing the upcoming apocalypse emanated from across the Atlantic or how there isn't a satisfactory political opposition in the UK for various reasons. But despite me also following loads of Who fans etc about the only person who bothers to tweet about Class is Patrick Ness himself, excitedly dropping trivia about the making of an episode but despite having 47.5k followers his tweets rarely receive replies and often from people who've either never seen the thing or want to offer some disparaging remarks.

It'd be useless trying to explain why that is beyond the show itself not being good enough for people to want to recommend it and create some word of mouth. It's rarely in the top ten on iPlayer and official figures haven't been released yet. Perhaps this will change with a tv broadcast, we are in uncharted waters in terms of how the show's being released, albeit for a public broadcaster (Netflix and Amazon have weekly shows too). But this has the stench of failure that really shouldn't be the case with something that has the Who brand. People even watched Torchwood's Miracle Day.

The commentary I've managed to ferret out for The Metaphysical Engine is that it's the best of the series mostly because the annoying kids aren't in it and isn't that problem when they're supposed to be the focus of the series? Well, yes it is. I don't necessarily agree, the kids can be quite entertaining when they're not being quite so horrible to each other and crack a few jokes, but it's fair to say Quill has been the saving grace of the series thanks to Katherine Kelly's acidic delivery and Chaplineque body language.

If the episode works at all, it's because Ness effectively decides to write one of those questing Doctor Who stories with numerous locales ala The Keys of Marinus, The Key To Time or Seasons of Fear, with its own Time Lord figure in Headmistress Dorothea flying a dimensionally transcendental travelling machine through the kinds of metaphysical realities which used to be found in Eighth Doctor novels instead of the usual alien worlds. Such stories have the added element of mystery or what this new locale is and what they'll find there.

Pitching up in other people's belief systems and afterlife is novel and the execution, especially of the Arn, atmospheric, helped immeasurably by Wayne Yip's cinematic direction taking advantage of the landscape (Yip's previous work includes Misfits which suggests why he might have got this gig). He also really knows how to seek out and take advantage of the micro expressions in Kelly's face, the side eye, the upwards motions of the side of her mouth, her seemingly telekinetic ability to control her hair. Every close up is compelling, especially when she's at rest.

Plus the idea of telling a side story which explains where a character who was otherwise absent in the previous episode is pretty novel even if it decided to simply re-use material from last week rather than reshoot those scenes from completely Quill's POV. The old BBC Books novel The Face of the Enemy offered a similar idea, with the Master filling in while the Third Doctor and Jo were off experiencing The Curse of Peladon. That also featured Ian and Barbara and Osgood's Dad. If only Class embraced the Who mythology with that kind of abandon.

So why did I literally nod off in places other than not being able to drink caffeine for medical reasons and my anti-depressants making me drowsy at inopportune moments? Bluntly, it's because there's not a lot to care about. I didn't empathise at all with Quill's quest; hers and Charlie's backstory is c-grade generic Star Trek material at best lacking the necessary foothold in human reality (RTD's Zog problem writ large) and, I suspect, due to the slender running time of the series we simply haven't had time to really get to know her character to the point of wanting her to succeed.

The long conversations about the nature of being a warrior are fine, and well played, but in identification terms they're a step too far for most of us, I suspect. The stakes are counter intuitive. We're being asked to cheer on someone attempting to return to her default setting of killing machine which is subconsciously a bit of a no-no. At least when Spike had his chip removed in Buffy, having already marked himself out as a beloved character, we pretty much went with him, right up to the point where he gained his soul.

It's just all so blah. Not awful, pretty watchable. It's competently written, so there's nothing to get angry about as I did through Torchwood. I can barely build up the anger to shout about Quill being subjected to a cross between a mystical pregnancy and "bun in the oven" syndrome which is pretty objectionable not least because there's a whole raft of questions about how intercourse works between two unrelated species pretending to be human and what the results of that might be. If the viewer's left asking such obstetrical questions at the end of an episode like that, something isn't right.

Life Just been confronted with some bad news whilst looking through The Guardian's archive. The man who I reported to whilst working on the Public Monuments & Sculpture Association project, one of my key mentors, one time Fine Art curator at the Walker Art Gallery, Edward Morris, died in September. He was seventy-five.

His obituary is inevitably filled with details I never knew including that the awe inspiring sculpture gallery in the Walker, was curated by him and part of his legacy. That display was one of the reasons I became interested in art at school and ultimately led to me applying for voluntary work at the gallery.

Of all the people I've met over the years, I can't imagine who I'd be if hadn't known him.

"There's a 'ghost train' service running in and out of London Paddington. It is rarely advertised and attracts few riders. It runs to and from West Ruislip, once a day, on weekdays only.

"This 'parliamentary' train is a little-known service kept open only to stop the lengthy process of shutting the line down completely due to lack of use. This means that if you ever have a need to get between Paddington and Ruislip at somepoint mid-morning, there is a train service that just might be suited to you."

I'm sure there must be someone who "collects" these things. And gets annoyed when the route is changed and they have to go back again.

Film In a (sight) change to the usual format, I'm simply going to post my favourite film of 1919. It's the first screen appearance of the unsung animated hero, Felix the Cat. It's called Feline Follies and despite the primitive animation is utterly charming:

TV Having assumed that Doctor Who's participation in Children in Need was going to just be the clip of the Christmas special and not wanting to see anything of the Christmas special before broadcast, I entirely overlooked Capaldi's participation in the above skit which is bit like the old Record Breakers specials.